8 July 2024

Another big D word

By Christine Humphries, Grade 3 educator at Bellavista School

Many researchers define dyscalculia as an umbrella term used to refer to various conditions that cause specific difficulties with maths, such as developmental dyscalculia (a maths difficulty presented at birth), mathematical disability, and number fact disorder among other terms. (Emerson and Babtie 2014)

Difficulties in maths can arise from various factors related to school or individual, which may cause significant gaps in students' mathematical development, such as absenteeism, illness, poor instructions from educators or the educational curriculum. These students don’t necessarily have dyscalculia, rather just find maths difficult; however, students with more severe and distinct difficulties are diagnosed with dyscalculia by a professional. Dyscalculia can have a deficit in one or more of the following domains: number sense, memorisation of arithmetic facts, accurate or fluent calculation, and accurate maths reasoning. (Faber 2021). Dyscalculia is not dependent on age, gender, or abilities.

Researchers know that students with dyscalculia have difficulties or challenges in understanding numbers. It is important to understand how the dyscalculic brain functions so that early intervention can occur. Research shows that one in four learners have difficulty with mathematics, but only around one in twenty (3-6%) have developmental dyscalculia (Shalev, Auerbach, Manor, et al, 2000).

According to Butterworth, number sense is the foundation of numeracy which entails understanding what numbers represent and being able to use them to solve problems. He states that the key components of number sense include an awareness of numbers, and their uses in the world around us, a good sense of place value concepts, approximation, estimation, and magnitude, the concept of numeration, and an understanding of comparisons and the equivalence of different representations and forms of numbers. (New Jersey Mathematics Coalition 1996), (Emerson and Babtie, 2013). Children who have a good understanding of number sense understand that five pencils are the same as the number five which is the same as five elephants. Children who do not yet have a good number sense, find it challenging that five pencils and five elephants are equal in amount but obviously not size. A child may need additional time, the teacher to rephrase or reread the questions as well as more concrete strategies to get to an answer. Strategies can be taught over and over, yet each time an activity is presented, it is as if the child is viewing the concept for the first time. Difficulties in acquiring, manipulating, retaining, and retrieving information are often observed in dyscalculic students.

Another characteristic of dyscalculia is anxiety, avoidance and frustration while doing mathematics. Clinical studies have shown that 90% of students with dyscalculia experience maths anxiety (Van Luit, 2010). Maths anxiety presents differently in students either in a physical form like nausea or stomach cramps, perspiration, shortness of breath or emotional form like having sleepless nights, restlessness, frustration, panic attacks. Task avoidance is also quite common, frustration levels are so high that students try to remove themselves from the task and/or lash out at others around them. Task avoidance leads to less practice and a deeper feeling of helplessness (learned helplessness) and lower levels of motivation (Faber, 2021).

A few other characteristics are poor estimation, difficulties with subitising, difficulties in mathematical operations (+;-;x;÷), inconsistent answering or guessing (constantly changing their answers without having mathematical reasoning), slow processing speed (they do not have automaticity to solve problems) and work pace (work is incomplete as inference is weak), using finger counting (always starting at 1).

Activities to develop number sense:

• Match two different types of objects together, such as five counting bears and a domino that shows five dots.
• Work up to showing quantity with more than two types of objects.
• Have many different items available for activities, such as dice, dominoes, number magnets, bears, counting chips, cubes, and number cards.
• Match number cards from a card deck or game of Uno with dots on dominoes. Find every number combination on the dominoes.
• Ten frames are great for organising numbers so that they can be easily counted. Matching numeral cards with ten frame representations is simple, yet effective at connecting quantity with numbers.

We need to be aware that just because a child may exhibit one or a few characteristics that have been mentioned or just find mathematics challenging does not indicate that the child is dyscalculic. There are many strategies and tools that can be used to empower the child, create a positive experience, and change the brain from a fixed mindset to a positive growth mindset. For more information, visit www.bellavista.org.za